The shooting incident Sunday night in West Penn township is apparently deer poaching gone bad.

West Penn Chief of Police Brian Johnson reports Kimberly Kokinda of Lansford was driving a car on Roads End Road with her boyfriend Raymond Meyers of Lehighton in the rear seat with a .22 caliber rifle.

The pair spotted a deer in a field so Kokinda drove into the field, Johnson said.

As Meyers was bringing up the rifle to shoot the deer, the rifle accidentally discharged, striking Kokinda in the back.

When neighbors spotted the car in the cornfield they thought it was a crash.

Kokinda is being treated at the hospital.